4 replies to this topic

[Rob Fantini]

Suppose that a clients' hard disk crashes on a weekend.
How would I get pro4 install keys?

[WE now use 4.0+ pro4. With 2.2 the installation keys would work on any hardware.]

[James Lolley]

You have to re-install in evaluation mode and re-apply for keys. We have experienced a lot of difficulties in this area because the slightest thing upsets the serialization eg. changing the inode value for pro4.ini or changing the server name or IP address. Also, the process of issuing add-on licenses isn't all that reliable. A customer adding 4 users on to an existing 10 user system may end with with valid keys for 4 users only. I don't have an issue with the concept, but there ought to be a more reliable and robust process.

[Rob Fantini]

I agree licensing is good as it helps prevent illegal copies of sofware. I too have had problems with configuration changes and serialization problems.

What prevents someone from never paying for pro4 by reinstalling evaluation mode many times? It seems to me that there would be something to prevent that...

When a reinstall in eval mode should /etc/pro4.ini be deleted 1-st?

[Dan Shannon]

In UNIX:

Move pro4.ini somewhere else and then run 'build' (or if it's not there, run 'install'). You MUST be superuser to do this. Before you do, make sure that you can run 'ar', if not use 'find / -name ar -print' to find it and then include the directory in PATH ('PATH={directory}:$PATH export PATH' will do it in the Bourne shell).

You can in fact do this forever, but it's cheating. And it's no good anyway because in evaluation mode you get the evaluation mode warnings telling you how many days you have left, which is no good for a live system (causes too many support calls: 'Why does it say this on my screen???')

Cheers

Dan Shannon

[Rob Fantini]

Dan,
Thanks for the info.... What you describe would be the emergency fall back position incase there were no way to get new keys from a Pro4 company. I plan on my software running for anothe 50 years... I don't know if there'll be a key generation source around that long...
When Lotus dumped their unix version, they enough to put the licensing key generation program on their support FTP site. I use that pgm when I upgrade our computers. Without it we wouldn't be using Lotus for unix daily.